Should I use AWS API Gateway or Kong for a mixed internal and public API setup?

It depends on what you value most, but for a mixed internal + public API setup, the usual split is:

• Choose AWS API Gateway if you want a managed, AWS-native, low-ops solution and most of your stack already lives in AWS.
• Choose Kong if you need more control, portability, advanced gateway features, or a single gateway across cloud/on-prem/hybrid environments.

Quick recommendation

• Mostly AWS, small-to-medium platform team, want speed and simplicity: AWS API Gateway
• Multiple environments/clouds, need custom policies/plugins, or want one gateway for internal + external traffic with fine-grained control: Kong

How they compare for your use case

AWS API Gateway is strong when:

• You’re exposing public APIs and want easy auth, throttling, quotas, WAF integration, and CloudWatch logging.
• You want fully managed service with minimal operational burden.
• Your internal APIs are mostly AWS Lambda, ECS, or private ALB/VPC endpoints and you don’t need complex gateway customization.
• You want fast setup and tight integration with:
  • IAM
  • Cognito / JWT authorizers
  • CloudWatch / X-Ray
  • AWS WAF
  • Private APIs via VPC endpoints

Kong is strong when:

• You need a gateway for both internal and public APIs with the same platform and policy model.
• You want plugin-based extensibility:
  • custom auth
  • rate limiting
  • request/response transformations
  • advanced routing
  • observability integrations
• You have hybrid or multi-cloud infrastructure.
• You want to avoid being heavily tied to AWS-specific patterns.
• You have more mature platform/infra ops capacity.

Important nuance for mixed internal + public

If “internal and public” means:

• Public APIs for customers
• Internal APIs for services/teams
• maybe with different security, routing, and governance

then Kong often fits better if you want a single consistent gateway plane across both, especially if internal APIs are not purely AWS-native.

But if your internal APIs are really just private APIs inside AWS, AWS API Gateway can work well for the public edge, while internal service-to-service traffic is often better handled by:

• internal ALB/NLB
• service mesh
• Cloud Map / private networking rather than forcing everything through API Gateway.

Cost and operations

• AWS API Gateway: lower ops, but costs can grow with high request volume.
• Kong: gateway software cost may be lower or comparable depending on edition/deployment, but you pay in operations, scaling, uptime, upgrades, unless you use a managed Kong offering.

Practical decision rule

Use AWS API Gateway if:

• you’re on AWS,
• need public API exposure quickly,
• and can keep internal traffic simpler.

Use Kong if:

• you need one gateway for internal + public APIs,
• want portability,
• or anticipate growing platform complexity.

My default take

For a mixed internal and public API setup, I’d lean:

• AWS API Gateway for a public-facing AWS-centric API layer
• Kong if you need a unified enterprise API gateway across internal/public and possibly multi-cloud/hybrid

If you want, I can give you a decision matrix based on your specifics (AWS footprint, traffic volume, auth needs, multi-cloud, team size, and whether the internal APIs are service-to-service or partner-facing).